Oral care implements, especially toothbrushes, are used by many people on a daily basis. Typical oral care implements comprise an elongate handle and a head connected to one end of the handle. The handle provides a structure by which a user grips and manipulates the oral care implement during use. The head typically comprises one or more elements designed to perform their intended function, such as tooth cleaning elements, soft tissue cleaning elements, and/or oral care agents.
Toothbrushes are oral care implements having one or more tooth cleaning elements, which are used to clean teeth by removing plaque and debris from surfaces of the teeth. Soft tissue cleaners, such as tongue scrapers, are oral care implements having one or more soft tissue cleaning elements, such as blades or surfaces with a multiplicity of protrusions extending therefrom, which are used to clean soft tissues in a user's mouth by reaching into crevices and folds in soft tissue, such as the papillae on the user's tongue, where bacteria and microdebris have collected.
Conventional oral care implements are limited in their ability to comply with oral surfaces during an oral care session. For example, during an oral care session, tooth cleaning elements of conventional toothbrushes are able to contact only some of the total surface area of a user's teeth. They might not be able to reach into the spaces between teeth at all. As a result, some portions of the total surface area of the user's teeth are not cleaned, meaning that the efficiency of the cleaning process is reduced. The same is true for conventional oral care implements other than toothbrushes. For example, conventional tongue scrapers are able to contact and clear only a portion of the crevices and folds in the soft tissue of a user's mouth. Moreover, some users find that conventional oral care implements are uncomfortable to use.
Over the years, efforts have been made to improve the design of oral care implements, in order that they may deliver improved cleaning of users' oral cavities during oral care sessions, and are more comfortable to use. Such efforts have included the development of toothbrush heads with flexibly-mounted cleaning elements, which are better adapted to reach into the spaces between teeth and to comply with the undulating surfaces of teeth, and the development of tongue scrapers with blades or other protrusions made of soft, elastomeric material.
Despite these efforts, a need still exists for an oral care implement that has a structure that delivers improved cleaning of a user's oral cavity during use. For example, there is a need for an oral care implement that better ensures that cleaning element(s) on the head of the implement comply with oral surfaces and the complex depressions and undulations therein, in order to deliver improved cleaning of the oral surfaces. There is also a need for an oral care implement that is more comfortable for a user to use.